


Never Great

by dodecahedrons



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Alcoholism, Depression, Gen, Post-Series Pre-Movie, Self-Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 00:53:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20282698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodecahedrons/pseuds/dodecahedrons
Summary: He thought he could find his answers in a bottle, but the bottle left him absolutely nothing.





	Never Great

Acquiring alcohol when you look like you’re five years old is incredibly difficult by any normal means you’d try. This is why places have strict rules regarding showing your ID - to remove the baby-faced babies from the pool of otherwise baby-faced adults who want to drink their problems away. Government ID was a miraculous thing that assisted those stricken with chronic baby-face to cope horribly with the realization their whole fucking life was a lie, but sadly governments don’t like to give their sanctioned identification cards to aliens of any variety, extra terrestrial or otherwise.

Rather than do what any angry, baby-faced alien who can’t get a legal ID lest they risk of serious punishment would do and cough up the dough to get a fake ID, a certain alien thought concocting a ridiculous plan to get his booze via other illegal means would be much more rewarding. Despite the fact he was trying to get the booze to ignore how every single one of his various plans over the years had backfired miserably, leading to his very Tallest removing his assigned planet from the line of the Armada, he figured yet another scheme would somehow make things better.

Despite his rather superior Irken technology, Zim couldn’t create his own fake ID. He couldn’t personally tell if it was due to Earth technology being so ass-backwards that government ID was damn near indecipherable, or just because all his drive and motivation was gone, but he just couldn’t. Along with that, his old man disguise had been chewed up by Gir long ago, added to the pile of once-disguises-turned-dog-chew-toys that had been accumulating in a deep part of the lair for years. He was at a loss. 

“Computer!” Zim demanded, the chutzpah that usually dripped from his voice missing entirely. The computer systems surrounding him immediately whirred to life as a deep, robotic voice spoke up.

“What is it  _ now _ , Zim?” the computer responded, annoyance filling every syllable he spoke. Zim lolled his head back, staring at the ceiling as he responded.

“Can you make me a uh….. A disguise? One that makes me look older,” Zim mumbled. “Gir ate my old one.”

“Not possible. Disguise material synthesis software out of date by months and unable to be updated.”

“Son of a bitch,” Zim mumbled under his breath, forcing himself to get out of his chair. “Whatever. Thanks for nothing.”

“You’re welcome, you potty-mouthed brat,” the computer responded before turning himself off. Zim ignored the insult and sulked his way to the elevator at the back of the room. Last week, insults lobbed at him from the computers governing his base’s operations wouldn’t have hurt. Hell, he might’ve even laughed them off and made jokes back at the computer, insulting it as well. But now that he knew his mission was a joke, it seemed every bit of Irken technology was making fun of him. Perhaps it was, too. He was an exile, after all. A disgrace to the Irken empire. Nothing more than a useless sack of flesh governed by an even more useless Pak. 

The elevator dinged and he crossed the threshold into it, slumping against the wall as it accelerated up through his base. He rose up from the trashcan next to the kitchen sink and simply fell out of it, lying on his side on the linoleum tile of the kitchen floor and staring at the wall covered in Gir’s incoherent scribblings. 

The television was on in the adjacent room, an obnoxious children’s show blasting at the highest volume a primitive Earth sound system would allow. His antennae vibrated at uncomfortable frequency to match the waves emitted by the tinny speakers of the TV, but he was already in so much emotional pain that physical pain seemed like nothing to him. He continued to just lie there, staring at Gir’s scribblings of a madman. ‘ _ Do anything is real? _ ’ was staring at him, the confused frowny-face next to it locking eyes with the Irken in an impromptu staring contest that only those who are incapable of blinking could win.

The obnoxiously loud, child-like jeering from the television was at such a high frequency that it overpowered the sound of mechanical parts whirring into the kitchen. In fact, Gir’s presence was only made known when a sharp finger jabbed into Zim’s cheek, causing him to break eye contact with the frowning scribble and roll onto his back. “What do you want Gir?”

Gir  _ had  _ been smiling down at Zim, but the vacancy in his master’s voice immediately made him change his demeanor. “Aw, someone’s sad!” 

“I’m fine. Just tired,” Zim said with a grunt, forcing himself to at least sit up. Gir leaned over, his face stupidly close to Zim’s. 

“No you’re not!” he responded, his concern hidden by his generally happy-go-lucky voice. Zim reached a hand up and pushed Gir out of his face, turning his head back to the scribbles on the wall.

“I said I’m  _ fine _ , Gir. Go back to your scary monkey show or whatever,” he responded, his hands involuntarily going up to his antennae to hold the ends of them in an attempt to dampen the screeching from the other room. It hurt, it fucking  _ hurt _ .

“Aw come on!” the robot prodded, poking Zim’s cheek once again. “We gotta cheer you up!”

Zim really,  _ really  _ wanted to yell at Gir to just fuck off, but the energy to yell the words just wasn’t coming to him. He couldn’t yell at Gir without thinking back to all the times the Tallest had yelled at him during their transmissions. All the times he thought the Tallest were joking with him, all the times he thought they were just being high-and-mighty leaders that couldn’t be individually proud of such a great invader… was that how he acted to Gir?

Instead of yelling, Zim opted to mumble a half-hearted inquiry of “Can you help me buy some stuff from the ABC store?” 

“ABC store? You gonna get some blocks?” Gir chirped. Zim tightened his grip on his antennae as he shook his head. 

“No. Absolutely not. Just turn your stupid show off and get your disguise on.”

* * *

After staring at himself in his disguise for all too long, evaluating every minor detail of how childish it looked, Zim managed to get himself to leave his house. It was dark, and part of him worried maybe the ABC store would be closed. Gir was still insistent that the ABC store catered to alphabetical blocks, and was going on a rant about all the towers he’d build with them. Zim didn’t bother trying to explain what the ABC store actually sold, hoping that seeing what lined the shelves would be enough.

As the door to the store was opened, a cheap bell jingled. The store was dimly lit, and was awfully small. Individual bottles as well as cases of various brands and breeds of alcohol lined ratty, wooden shelving units that ran the length of the store. To the immediate left of the entrance was a check-out lane, manned by a scruffy man who seemed to be aging poorly. The man wasn’t paying any mind to the duo as they entered, which gave Zim the opportunity to book it to the far side of the store.

He didn’t know much about alcohol. Irkens didn’t have any substance like it. Never, until he came to Earth, had he heard of a semi-poisonous substance that people drank to act stupider than they already did. It was laughable to him at first, until one of the soap operas Gir watched depicted alcoholism as a coping method. Despite being clearly depicted as an  _ awful  _ coping method, Zim only took away that Alcohol fucked with your feelings. 

His feelings literally could not get any worse than they were, so he figured why not.

“Gir. I need you to hide these,” Zim whispered, pulling random bottles of alcohol off the shelves. Gir saluted, a red glow visible from underneath the fabric of the dog onesie he wore. Quietly, he peeled the hood back and opened the compartment on his head where he typically hid things. Zim attempted to place the bottles in without making any noise, but Gir decided that it tickled.

Robotic laughter was not easily maskable as anything but robotic laughter.

Zim frantically tried to shush his robotic companion, but heavy footsteps making their way across creaking floorboards made him realize it was a futile attempt. Instead, he pulled Gir’s hood back over his head and knelt down. making like he was tying his own shoe.

“Excuse me, are you even old enough to be in here?” the man inquired as he walked up behind Zim. Zim craned his neck and made eye contact with the man. 

He looked like he smelled horrible. It was times like this that made Zim glad Irkens didn’t have any means of smelling.

“Uh…” Zim froze. He didn’t know what to say. 

“Can I see your ID?” the man continued, not letting Zim have time to think.

“Y’see, the funny thing about that is-”

“I’m going to count to three, and if you aren’t out that door by the time I’m done, I’m calling the police.”

Quickly, Zim stood to his feet, grabbing Gir by his leash and dragging him out the door. The cheap bell rang once more as they made their grand escape.

* * *

Why did he feel so groggy and nauseous? TV shows always showed people drinking absurd amounts of alcohol and only acting like idiots after six or seven drinks. Surely, that should be how he reacted. He didn’t want to just act stupid, though. He wanted to go numb.

So he drank. And drank. After a bottle and a half of his stolen goods were down the hatch, he found himself in the kitchen once more, hunched weakly over the sink and puking out his insides. He didn’t even realize he could puke.

God, he felt horrible.

The screeching soundtrack of Gir’s shows were back, too. This time, the vibrations felt like razor blades digging into his antennae, and the sensation traveled until his whole body felt how nails on a chalkboard sounded. This only made him puke harder and more frequently.

After what seemed like an eternity, he found himself too weak to hold onto the countertop and collapsed onto the floor, his head banging against the hard wood of the cabinet below the sink as he did so. He felt himself crying, and couldn’t do anything to stop it. In fact, the harder he tried, the harder the tears fell.

No wonder the Tallest took his planet out of the course of destruction. Here he was, once a mighty invader, bested by a human drink meant to make you feel funny.

He didn’t feel funny. He wasn’t acting stupid. He didn’t feel numb.

He felt empty. 

He sat there, on the kitchen floor, gripping the ends of his antennae once more as he dry heaved and sobbed into the cold linoleum tile. Everything fucking hurt. The physical pain was no longer hidden under the emotional, rather they were on par, trying to fight to be the more painful method of agony.

He couldn’t even find the strength to reach for his bottle of vodka as he lay frozen in agony on the kitchen floor, reduced to nothing but a pathetic stain on the reality of the Irken empire.

He wished the Tallest would have killed him back then rather than lying to him, and he wished he had the strength to finish what they’d thought they started.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t even destroy himself properly.

He was never actually a great invader, was he? 

**Author's Note:**

> zim being drunk as balls in that one scene in ETF made me wanna write this so uhhhh here we go


End file.
